Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Nice picture for BAD news

KOMPAS.com - One chilly polar bear cub has hit on the perfect way to stay warm and dry... by riding on his mother's back. The picture was taken by stunned tourist Angela Plumb on a ship anchored within the Svalbard archipelago, Norway.
'There was a lot of activity and my husband and I were watching polar bears catching seals,' Mrs Plumb told the Mail Online.
'Then in the middle distance we spotted a polar bear swimming in front of the ship with a baby on its back.
'Luckily I had my camera on a tripod to hand and I swivelled it around and took the picture just after it had clambered onto the ice.'

Experts have rarely seen this behaviour and it is thought to be the first time it has been caught on camera. Polar bears live among the Arctic sea ice where they hunt for seals. While adults are good swimmers and well adapted to the terrain, small cubs do no have a fat layer sufficient to avoid chilling in icy water.
Dr Jon Aars from the Norwegian Polar Institute has reported on the unique event for the September issue of the journal Polar Biology. He said: 'The behaviour may be necessary to allow the families to get around in areas of sea ice. It may minimise exposure to cold water and significantly reduce chilling of the cub.
'It may also be a way for the mother to transfer cubs not yet able or willing to swim.'
The adult polar bear was wearing a collar with a GPS satellite tag, and researchers discovered she was a relatively old mother at 19-years-old. Polar bears live an average of 17 years in the wild.
She had been recorded with two cubs three months earlier, so one must have perished during their travels. There are around 20,000 polar bears in the wild. However, scientists predict that, if current warming trends continue in the Arctic, two-thirds of the world's polar bears could disappear by2050.